No mention of last nights crowd?

[finders]

Not appalling but not as good as it could be.Thugby will be lucky to get anywhere near 70,000 to any of its finals this weekend! The prices are way too high for the average joe that supports his team through the season.FFS its not the Opera just a game of footy!

Wake up AFL and support the people that support you.Where has "the peoples game" theory gone to??

 

[Top Dog]

Could be way off the mark, but I just thought I'd throw this theory out there for debate:

Perhaps the slightly disapointing crowd last night could be put down to Geelong's absolute domination over the last two years. I reckon a few thousand neutrals wouldn't have bothered last night just expecting the game to be a lot more one-sided.

Agree 100%

I've got about 15-20 acquaintances that are attending the Saints Vs Hawks game rather than the Dogs Vs Cats game as they expect a better contest for the Saturday night fixture.

From a neutral supporters perspective tonight's game looks more appealing.

 

[DoaSt]

You only need to worry when they start filling only one half of the stadium and putting all the tv cameras on the other side of the ground to make it look like there's more people at the game.

They did that with the last canberra soccer team.

 

[Hawkk]

Interesting comparison to the Dogs past Preliminary Finals

Preliminary Finals
W Bulldogs V Adelaide - 70,088 (Series Game)
W Bulldogs V Adelaide - 67,577 (Series Game)

Compared the finals crowds then to now, I doubt we'll ever see the amount of neutral supporters attending games of football we once did. Gone are the days of North-West Coast drawing 55,000 to Semi Finals or Essendon-West Coast 85,000, the mass media coupled with expensive tickets has driven the majority of the neutral crowd away from football finals IMO

Compared to Geelong's finals series last year

Qualifying Final
2007 - Geelong V North Melbourne - 77,630 (Series Game)
2008 - Geelong V St Kilda - 71,653

Preliminary Final
2007 - Geelong V Collingwood - 98,002 (Series Game)
2008 - Geelong V W Bulldogs - 70,140 (Series Game)

The St Kilda final wasn't too bad considering it wasn't the Series Game for the round, the Geelong-Bulldogs on the otherhand was pretty disappointing (just 55,000 supporters paid for tickets)

The AFL members looked pretty empty last night, clearly Geelong's dominance has driven away the 6-7,000 neutrals you'd expect to attend a game like last night.

I would have expected a similar turnout to the Geelong-North Melbourne Qualifying Final under reasonable circumstances

 

[Rob]

Not appalling but not as good as it could be.Thugby will be lucky to get anywhere near 70,000 to any of its finals this weekend! The prices are way too high for the average joe that supports his team through the season.FFS its not the Opera just a game of footy!

Interesting that you bring up the NRL - apparantly tonights game is Brisbane is nearly sold out. Tickets are maximum $50, and you can take a family for $62.
Not suggesting that prices be set that low, but it's obvious to anyone with a brain that ticket prices to AFL finals are currently too high.

 

[OzBomber]

If it was normal pricing, they'd get 90k+ easily.

 

[beez]

Re: Crowd Last night?

Looked around 70k

Anyone got the exact crowd number?

Read above

70140

 

[Hawkk]

If it was normal pricing, they'd get 90k+ easily.

If it was 1970's pricing probably.

With the exception of Collingwood-Geelong last year, its been 20-30 years since we've had a final that'd drawn 90k.

 

[Lions1993]

Re: Crowd Last night?

Read above

70140

Thanks, I missed that post when I was reading through the thread. Sorry

 

[BIG FAT BOB]

Interesting comparison to the Dogs past Preliminary Finals

Preliminary Finals
W Bulldogs V Adelaide - 70,088 (Series Game)
W Bulldogs V Adelaide - 67,577 (Series Game)

Compared the finals crowds then to now, I doubt we'll ever see the amount of neutral supporters attending games of football we once did. Gone are the days of North-West Coast drawing 55,000 to Semi Finals or Essendon-West Coast 85,000, the mass media coupled with expensive tickets has driven the majority of the neutral crowd away from football finals IMO

Compared to Geelong's finals series last year

Qualifying Final
2007 - Geelong V North Melbourne - 77,630 (Series Game)
2008 - Geelong V St Kilda - 71,653

Preliminary Final
2007 - Geelong V Collingwood - 98,002 (Series Game)
2008 - Geelong V W Bulldogs - 70,140 (Series Game)

The St Kilda final wasn't too bad considering it wasn't the Series Game for the round, the Geelong-Bulldogs on the otherhand was pretty disappointing (just 55,000 supporters paid for tickets)

The AFL members looked pretty empty last night, clearly Geelong's dominance has driven away the 6-7,000 neutrals you'd expect to attend a game like last night.

I would have expected a similar turnout to the Geelong-North Melbourne Qualifying Final under reasonable circumstances

All the games in bold had something else in common too - they were all played in daylight. (I stand to be corrected) Perhaps there's another reason.

 

[trubludoggie]

Are we all forgetting that this is the first time in quite a few years that the majority of the finals have been played in Melbourne.

I thought the attendance last night was reasonable considering this is the first time for a while both prelims have been played in Melbourne.

As someone else earlier said the AFL, MCC, Medallions club, neautrals etc.., the majority would probably go to se Hawks v Saints expecting a closer contest.

 

[Hawkk]

All the games in bold had something else in common too - they were all played in daylight. (I stand to be corrected) Perhaps there's another reason.

Maybe

But the Hawks-Dogs game and Collingwood-Geelong games both exceeded my expectations in terms of what they'd draw, both were Friday Night games.

The closer the contest is anticipated to be, the greater the crowds

Last weeks Collingwood-St Kilda game wasn't a poor crowd for example, they sold 76,706 tickets. Had it been the designated Series Game for the round instead of the Dogs/Swans (yawn) it would have drawn 85-90,000, which is what most expected.

Ditto St Kilda-Geelong, had that been the designated Series Ticket game instead of Hawthorn-W Bulldogs, it would have drawn 80-85,000

The reason why crowds are down in Melbourne is also partly due to the fact that they're are alot more Melbourne games this year, meaning more non Series Games and spliting up the neutral crowd

 

[OzBomber]

If it was 1970's pricing probably.

With the exception of Collingwood-Geelong last year, its been 20-30 years since we've had a final that'd drawn 90k.

Why 70s? Were junior tickets 30c or something? During the season you can get a junior ticket for the price of a gatorade at the G and the Dome ($3).

 

[Ant85]

The AFL has definitely over-priced its finals games.

Considering the economic climate, petrol prices, interest rates and the rising costs of food, I'm actually really surprised the AFL would raise finals prices this year. I'm not surprised that we have low attendances at finals games this year.

Even Collingwood-St.Kilda only drew 76,000, which I found a bit disappointing. I know of Collingwood supporters who went to every match in the season, but stayed at home for the semi-final, simply because they didn't want to or couldn't pay over $50 for a ticket.

Whoever is in charge of events and marketing at the AFL somehow missed the obvious economic factors when forming a pricing strategy for this year's finals series.

I really wonder what they do down there at AFL HQ.

 

[flamethrower]

Could be way off the mark, but I just thought I'd throw this theory out there for debate:

Perhaps the slightly disapointing crowd last night could be put down to Geelong's absolute domination over the last two years. I reckon a few thousand neutrals wouldn't have bothered last night just expecting the game to be a lot more one-sided.

I know in Melbourne in particular, the crowds (and behaviour) at ODI cricket matches have dropped significantly over the last decade and I think that is partly due to the fact that Australia has been so bloody good at the game for so long.

I expect tonight's crowd to top 80k.

This would have a lot to do with it, as it was the AFL and MCC members where most of the empty seats were. Both had multiple bays of empty seats in the top deck, which gives a good indication of the lack of enthusiasm displayed by neutral fans last night.

A few Cats and Bulldog fans would have stayed away due to the high ticket prices...$200+ for a family is way too much just to watch an AFL game, especially with the Grand Final a week later and the money it takes to acquire tickets for that event ($200 for members and $2000 for non-members).

 

[numchuks]

Jesus christ, I think some people are getting crowd fatigue around here!

70,000 is a great crowd, other codes would die to pull those kinds of numbers!

 

[chesson]

I really wonder what they do down there at AFL HQ.

Count lot's and lot's of beans.

 

[cs61]

The amount of finals in Melbourne this year is obviously going to reduce crowd figures.

I'm sure if there were only a couple of MCG finals, you'd get sell out preliminaries, but the amount of Victorian finals has seen two MCG finals each week of the finals.

Neutral fans make up a lot of numbers in the finals, you can't expect them pay out each week, tickets aren't that cheap.


70k is pretty healthy regardless.

 

[g-unit]

How much were the tickets to the game? Probably too much which is a turnoff for some and the arrogant geelong fans would have thought of an easy victory so already looking to the grand final.

 

[BlueBen]

I was at both the Hawthorn vs. Bulldogs Qualifying Final and Geelong vs. Western Bulldogs Preliminary Final and on both occasions the crowds didn't look as big as the official figure suggests. Particularly the Qualifying Final, and having spoken to others who were also at that game, we all thought that the figure was suspiciously high.

 

[captain amazo]

Was a lot of News articles about the Doggies fans not being able to afford the $90....which is fair enough for struggling families in this tough economic climate!

You've certainly changed your tune.